SYDNEY: Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he tested positive to COVID-19, joining other top government officials in contracting the disease as the daily infection rate surpassed 100,000 for the first time amid an outbreak of the omicron variant.
“Like thousands of Australians, I tested positive today to COVID-19,” Frydenberg wrote in a short message which he posted to Twitter and Facebook late on Friday.
“I have the common symptoms and am isolating with my family,” he added without elaborating or disclosing which variant he had.
Other high-ranked Australian lawmakers including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Defense Minister Peter Dutton have contracted and overcome the illness.
Under current Australian COVID-19 guidelines, people who return a positive test and those deemed “close contacts” must isolate for seven days.
Australia has been posting successive record numbers of new daily infections, with another surge on Saturday.
The country reported 116,024 new cases, smashing the previous day’s record of just over 78,000. Nearly 100,000 of the new cases were in the most populous states Victoria, which is home to the upcoming Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, and New South Wales.
The state of Western Australia had not reported its daily count. Victoria noted that its daily caseload, which more than doubled the previous day’s to 51,356, included the results of rapid antigen tests taken up to a week before that could only be tabulated after being submitted on a website starting from Friday.
The country reported 25 new COVID-19 related deaths, its highest since the peak of the Delta wave in October 2021.
Australian leaders, including Frydenberg, have been urging the country to move on from a strategy of stop-start lockdowns now that more than 90 percent of the population aged over 16 is fully vaccinated.
But state leaders have been reintroducing restrictions amid exploding case numbers, mostly of the highly transmissible omicron variant. A day earlier, New South Wales canceled non-urgent surgery to clear hospital space for COVID-19 patients and resumed a ban on dancing and drinking while standing up in bars.
Australia treasurer tests positive for COVID-19 as cases hit a record
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Australia treasurer tests positive for COVID-19 as cases hit a record
- Other high-ranked Australian lawmakers including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Defense Minister Peter Dutton have contracted and overcome the illness
UK defense minister suggests Putin’s ‘hidden hand’ behind Iran tactics
LONDON: UK Defense Minister John Healey suggested on Thursday that Russia was influencing Iran’s use of drone attacks in its war with the United States and Israel.
Healey said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “hidden hand” may be behind some of the tactics deployed by Tehran in the Middle East conflict, which started when the United States and Israel struck Iran on February 28.
He told reporters that officials were analyzing an Iranian-made drone that hit the UK’s Akrotiri air force base in Cyprus on March 1 “for any evidence of Russian or any other foreign components and parts.”
“We will update you and appropriately publish any findings from that when we’ve got them,” he said during a visit to Britain’s military headquarters in Northwood, near London.
“But I think no one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics, potentially some of their capabilities as well, not least because one world leader that is benefiting from the sky high oil prices at the moment is Putin,” he added.
Russia is a close ally of Iran, with the two agreeing last year to help each other counter “common threats.”
US President Donald Trump said Saturday he had no indication Russia was supporting Iran in the war, but that if they were, it was not “helping much.”
Nick Perry, the British military’s chief of joint operations, told Healey there were “definitively” signs of a link between Russia and Iran, including Iran’s use of drones “as learned from the Russians.”
No one was injured when the drone hit a hangar at Akrotiri. British warplanes shot down a further two drones heading for the base the same day.
Guy Foden, a brigadier in the British army, briefed Healey that UK troops based at a military base housing international coalition troops in Irbil, Iraq, had helped shoot down two Iranian drones on Wednesday.
